LA VALSE DES OBUS
I
Chers amis, je vais
Vous chanter des couplets,
Sur la guerre,
A l'Yser.
Pour vous faire savoir,
Que la vie, tous les soirs,
Aux tranchées,
N'est pas gaie.
A peine arrivé,
'l Faut aller travailler.
Qu'il fasse noir' ou qu'il y ait clair de lune,
Et sans fair' du bruit,
Nous allons près de l'ennemi,
Remplir des sacs pour fair' des abris.
Ir et IIe Refrain
Chaqu' fois que nous sommes aux tranchées,
Crack! Il tombe des obus.
Nous sommes tous là, le dos courbée
Crack! Encore un obus.
Les shrapnels pour nous divetir,
Au travail, nous font déguerpir.
Mais, et qui nous ennuie le plus,
Crack! se sont les obus.
II
L'abri terminé,
'l Faut aller l'occuper,
Sans façons.
Allez-donc.
Pas moyen d' se bouger
Donc, on doit y rester
Accroupi,
Jour et nuit,
Pendant la chaleur,
Pour passer vingt-quatr' heures.
On nous donn' une d'mi gourde de café.
La soif nous tourmente,
Et la poudre asphyxiante,
Nous étouffe au dessus du marché.
III
Malgré nos souffrances,
Nous gardons l'espérance
D' voir le jour,
De notr' retour
De r'trouver nos parents,
Nos femmes et nos enfants.
Plein de joie,
Oui ma foi,
Mais pour arriver,
A ce jour tant rêvé,
Nous devons tous y mettre du cœur,
C'est avec patience,
Et plein de confiance,
Que nous repouss'rons les oppresseurs.
Refrain
Pour chasser ces maudits All'mands
Crack! Il faut des obus.
En plein dedans mon commandant,
Crack! Encore des obus.
Et la baionnett' dans les reins,
Nous les chass'rons au delà du Rhin.
La victoire des Alliés s'ra dûe
A la valse des obus.
There is little value in telling of suffering unless something can be done about it. So I close this book with an appeal for help in a worthy work.
REMAKING FRANCE
There was a young peasant farmer who went out with his fellows, and stopped the most powerful and perfectly equipped army of history. He saved France, and the cause of gentleness and liberty. He did it by the French blood in him—in gay courage and endurance. He was happy in doing it, or, if not happy, yet glorious. But he paid the price. The enemy artillery sent a splinter of shell that mangled his arm. He lay out through the long night on the rich infected soil. Then the stretcher bearers found him and lifted him to the car, and carried him to the field hospital. There they had to operate swiftly, for infection was spreading. So he was no longer a whole man, but he was still of good spirit, for he had done his bit for France. Then they bore him to a base hospital, where he had white sheets and a wholesome nurse. He lay there weak and content. Every one was good to him. But there came a day when they told him he must leave to make room for the fresher cases of need. So he was turned loose into a world that had no further use for him. A cripple, he couldn't fight and he couldn't work, for his job needed two arms, and he had given one, up yonder on the Marne. He drifted from shop to shop in Paris. But he didn't know a trade. Life was through with him, so one day, he shot himself.
That, we learn from authoritative sources, is the story of more than one broken soldier of Joffre's army.
To be shot clean dead is an easier fate than to be turned loose into life, a cripple, who must beg his way about. Shall these men who have defended France be left to rot? All they ask is to be allowed to work. It is gallant and stirring to fight, and when wounded the soldier is tenderly cared for. But when he comes out, broken, he faces the bitterest thing in war. After the hospital—what? Too bad, he's hurt—but there is no room in the trades for any but a trained man.
Why not train him? Why not teach him a trade? Build a bridge that will lead him from the hospital over into normal life. That is better than throwing him out among the derelicts. Pauperism is an ill reward for the service that shattered him, and it is poor business for a world that needs workers. If these crippled ones are not permitted to reconstruct their working life, the French nation will be dragged down by the multitude of maimed unemployable men, who are being turned loose from the hospitals—unfit to fight, untrained to work: a new and ever-increasing Army of The Miserable. The stout backbone and stanch spirit of even France will be snapped by this dead-weight of suffering.